Royal Academy
Michael Craig-Martin, Royal Academy review - from clever conceptual art to digital decorWednesday, 25 September 2024
Michael Craig-Martin was the most playful and provocative of the conceptual artists. His early sculptures are like visual puns, a play on the laws of nature. On the Table, 1970 (pictured below right), for instance, appears to defy gravity. Four... Read more... |
In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s, Royal Academy review - famous avant-garde Russian artists who weren't Russian after allWednesday, 03 July 2024
Ukraine’s history is complex and often bitter. The territory has been endlessly fought over, divided, annexed and occupied. From 1917-20 it enjoyed a brief period of independence before being swallowed up once more by the Soviet Union after a... Read more... |
Entangled Pasts 1768-now, Royal Academy review - an institution exploring its racist pastTuesday, 06 February 2024
In Titian’s painting Diana and Actaeon,1559, a cluster of naked beauties bathes beside a stream. Scarcely visible in the right hand corner is a black woman helping the goddess hide her nudity from Acteon who has stumbled into her private glade. The... Read more... |
Marina Abramović, Royal Academy review - young performers stand in for the absent artistSaturday, 23 September 2023
One of the most cherished memories of my 40 plus years as an art critic is of easing my way between Marina Abramović and her partner Ulay. They were standing either side of a doorway at Documenta in Kassel, Germany, leaving just enough room for... Read more... |
Modest, Kiln Theatre review - tale of Victorian would-be trailblazer fails and succeedsThursday, 06 July 2023
Whether you believe that Ellen Brammar’s play, Modest, newly arrived in London from Hull Truck Theatre, succeeds or not, rather depends on your criteria for evaluating theatre. On storytelling, character development and nuance, it is two and a half... Read more... |
Spain and the Hispanic World, Royal Academy review - a monumental surveyWednesday, 25 January 2023
Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library are displayed as a monumental survey of Spanish art from Antiquity to the 20th century. The new exhibition stands as testament to the extraordinary vision of its founder, Archer M Huntington.... Read more... |
Making Modernism, Royal Academy review - a welcome if confusing intro to seven lesser known artistsSaturday, 12 November 2022
The Royal Academy’s Making Modernism is a welcome introduction to seven women painters working in Germany at the beginning of the last century. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d never heard of Gabriele Münter, Marianne Werefkin and Paula Modersohn-... Read more... |
William Kentridge, Royal Academy review - from art to theatre, and back againMonday, 24 October 2022
South African artist William Kentridge appears on video in his studio, twice. On the right he sits scribbling, waiting for an idea to surface. Meanwhile his alter ego stands impatiently by, trying to peek at his other half’s notes and, desperate for... Read more... |
Milton Avery: American Colourist, Royal Academy review - from backward-looking impressionist to forward looking-colouristThursday, 14 July 2022
I’ve always been bemused by the American painter, Milton Avery. Not having seen enough of his paintings together, I couldn’t gauge if they are quirkily naive – lodged in a cul de sac aside from the mainstream – or hyper-sophisticated harbingers of... Read more... |
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, Royal Academy review – a life lived in extremisThursday, 27 January 2022
Francis Bacon Man and Beast fills most of the main galleries at the Royal Academy. Thankfully, five of the rooms are empty. The exhibition is such a dispiriting experience, I’d have been hollering like a howler monkey if there’d been any more. And... Read more... |
David Hockney / Michael Armitage, Royal Academy review - painting with an iPad vs brushes and paintSaturday, 22 May 2021
David Hockney has a new toy, an app designed specially for him that allows him to work on an iPad with fine brushes. He spent the first five months of lockdown In Normandy making daily records of the coming of spring; the results are displayed in a... Read more... |
Tracey Emin / Edvard Munch, Royal Academy review - juxtapositions that confuse rather than clarifyTuesday, 15 December 2020
Even before going to art school, Tracey Emin discovered the work of the Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch. And even though he was born 100 years before her, she embraced him as a kindred spirit. One can see why. Whether painting figures,... Read more... |
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